The Poet's Wife by Rebecca Stonehill - TuesdayTeaser

Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.

This week we are looking at The Poet's Wife by Rebecca Stonehill.

 As a little girl, Rebecca avidly subscribed to the Puffin Club magazine. She once decided to enter a competition in which children were asked to write a story about a zany family. She didn’t have to think too hard about it; she penned a thinly veiled fictional tale about her own family and won. The following year she read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and from that moment on, knew she had to be a writer.

 Fast forward twenty years, a skiing accident meant she might never walk again. She poured all her energies into that long-forgotten dream. She started to write The Poet's Wife and found she couldn’t stop. So she didn’t.

Rebecca is out of her wheelchair and has had three novels published as well as many short stories and non-fiction articles. She lives in Norfolk with her husband and three children where she runs creative writing workshops for kids and young people.

The Blurb

An unforgettable journey into the heart of one family torn apart by war. Granada, 1920. Free-spirited Luisa and young poet Eduardo fall in love, cementing a bond that can never be broken. 

Behind the jasmine filled courtyard, perched amongst houses like clouds on a hilltop, stands a beautiful villa; Carmen de las Estrellas. Beneath its walls live Eduardo and Luisa with their thriving family, but war is looming, casting its shadow over the household. 

When Civil War finally breaks out, Luisa and Eduardo must fiercely protect those dear to them. Yet these are turbulent times, and as each of their children begin to make their way in the world, the solace of home cannot shield them from the horrors of war. 

The Poet’s Wife is an extraordinary piece of storytelling spanning over fifty years – a heart- wrenching novel of a family devastated by war but bound together by love, loss and hope, told through the eyes of three remarkable women.

The Beginning

Prologue

He thinks we can't see him, but I know he's watching us, drawing us. We don't mind. We are so used to his silent presence observing from the shadows. Father and I sit on a faded rug, shaded by the leafy, fragrant canopy of my orange tree. In that yellowing, high heat of the day, I feel drowsy and lay back on the rug, my eyelids drooping and my head against the comforting dip of Father's waist. I don't know how long we've been here for, and I don't know how many poems I've been read but Garcia Lorca's words continue to wash over me. 

'In the green morning I wanted to be a heart. A heart. And in the ripe evening I wanted to be a nightingale. A nightingale.'

I hear movement from the corner of the courtyard and slowly lift my head and turn it. Pablo has shifted to find a more comfortable position from which to draw. As I look behind, he catches my eye and a small smile creeps on to his face. I smile back at him slowly, lazily. Then I turn back to rest my head on the rug and stare up at the patterns the leaves make against the sapphire patch of Granada sky.

***

Such an atmospheric beginning. I could almost feel the heat. Could you?

Biographical information is courtesy of the author's website: http://rebeccastonehill.com/